With Android Running N1 Tablet, Nokia Is Back In The Gadget Game

When Nokia sold its handset division to Microsoft, everyone thought Nokia is out of consumer markets. There were reasons to justify that claim too as the deal with Microsoft prevented the company from using Nokia logo on “smartphones” until 2016. Obviously, it would have been a long, long wait to see Nokia return to the consumer market. But the company has surprised us all, yet again.

Nokia has come up with its first Android tablet called N1. This is not the first Nokia tablet. That honor goes to Lumia 2520, a WindowsRT running tablet. Honestly speaking, Nokia N1’s design looks all like Apple’s iPad mini. Nokia N1 uses Aluminum unibody construction. It has a 7.9 inch IPS LCD, LED backlit display with the resolution 2048×1536. It’s further protected by a Corning Gorilla Glass 3. It’s a zero air-gap display, like the one old Nokia N9, which should make everything on the display more real. There’s a 8MP AF camera on back and a 5MP front facing camera.

Nokia has made sure that specs are drool worthy too. The Nokia N1 uses a 2.4GHz Intel Atom Z3580 processor with 2GB RAM. Nokia has emphasized on audio capability of N1 as the tablet uses technology from Wolfson with two 0.5W stereo speakers. There’s a 5300 mAh battery to power the tablet.

Now, here’s an essential bit of N1. It runs on the latest Android Lollipop 5.0. There’s a custom UI called Nokia Z Launcher. Nokia had run beta of Z Launcher few months back to gather feedback and improve and the implementation of it on N1 is the fruition.

Nokia had been teasing its upcoming device since last few days. Thanks to recent statement from the company on licensing its logo, people were expecting a Chromecast like device. Instead, Nokia revealed its first ever Android running tablet. None of us expected it to play such a bold move. Company managed to keep it a secret until its revelation today. There were no hints, no rumors about Nokia N1. N1 is the first device that Nokia launched under its brand licensing program. Nokia is working with some, undisclosed OEM or hardware partner for the production, sales and support for N1 tablet. Yet, Nokia N1 is fully designed by Nokia and the company has licensed its name, design, software (Z Launcher) and IPs to its OEM.

Nokia N1 will be available for purchase in Q1 2015 and China will be the first country to get it. It’s priced quite aggressively at just $249. Tablet is highly crowded and that of Android running tablets have been growing slowly. It’ll be interesting see if Nokia’s fresh attempt at handhelds yields them any results or not. It is just the beginning for new Nokia. It has sure got me excited. What about you? Let us know in the comments below.